focusing on individual preferences and how certain decisions will affect the self. Research concludes that differences in culture, religion, and socioeconomic status are likely to influence whether people perceive decisions as moral, conventional, or personal (Nucci, 1997).
Parental, Peer, and Cultural Influences
Parents, peers, and culture are far more influential in the development of moral reasoning than originally proposed. Parents who promote a supportive environment, encourage children to question and actively develop moral reasoning, and who maintain high‐quality relationships with children are likely to raise adolescents with higher levels of moral reasoning (e.g., Malti & Latzko, 2010). A child’s interaction with peers can also increase their moral reasoning through discussing moral conflict (Eisenberg & Morris, 2004). Additionally, culture plays a role in moral development; those in individualistic cultures typically base moral reasoning on justice, while those from collectivist cultures usually focus on group harmony.
Roots of Moral Development
Socialization and internalization are two processes that contribute to moral development in early childhood. Socialization is when children learn to behave in a socially acceptable way by developing habits, skills, values, and motives deemed appropriate by society. Socialization occurs when children have internalized society’s standards and held them as their own—they no longer blindly obey rules (Grusec & Goodnow, 1994).
The development of a conscience stems from an individual’s internal standards of conduct and begins early in childhood (Thompson, 2014). Individuals learn how to abstain from certain behaviors and, if unable, may experience emotional discomfort. Parenting is highly involved and parents may notice their children need additional guidance. However, children may have already internalized their parents’ standards and act in a way that meets these standards without assistance (Kochanska, Coy, & Murray, 2001). When toddlers have mutually responsive relationships with their mothers, they are more likely to show moral emotions (e.g., guilt, empathy), moral conduct, and moral cognition in their early school years. Overall, one’s conscience can influence moral development by restricting destructive tendencies, promoting compliance with society’s standards, and encouraging prosocial behavior (Eisenberg, 2000).
Prosocial Moral Reasoning
Prosocial behavior can be defined as behavior that is voluntarily performed in order to benefit another person. The urge to engage in this behavior is associated with a person’s morality and many people use prosocial moral reasoning to aid decision‐making. This reasoning may be useful when an individual has to decide between helping another person or meeting the needs of oneself. Altruism is at the center of prosocial behavior and can be referred to as the motivation to help other people, even if it comes at a cost. Altruism is seen in infants as young as 14 months old, but children may differ in their readiness and reasons for engaging in prosocial behavior (Warneken & Tomasello, 2009). Some research shows humans may be biologically predisposed to act in prosocial ways while other research focuses more on parental and societal influences. Parents who are warm, sympathetic, and demonstrate prosocial behavior are more likely to instill prosocial behavior in children. Child peer groups that model prosocial behavior also result in a greater likelihood of increasing this behavior among other children (Hoorn et al., 2016).
Sex‐Role Development
Sex Versus Gender
A person’s sex is assigned at birth based on outward physical characteristics/genitalia. In contrast, gender identity refers to how a person feels inside; it is one’s personal conception, or feeling, as male or female (or, sometimes, both or neither). Gender does not depend on the outward physiological indicators or internal reproductive organs that determine our biological sex. While most people’s gender identities align with their biological sex, it is not uncommon for people to identify with a gender that does not align with their assigned sex.
Development of Gender Identity
In the short span of just a few years, children begin to identify as a girl or a boy, and act in ways that are characteristic of their gender. By the preschool years, girls and boys start to differ in forms of play. Boys tend to be more active, independent, “rough‐and‐tumble,” and less compliant than girls, whereas girls tend to be more verbal and nurturing. This developmental period is also when girls and boys generally start to play with same‐sex individuals, a phenomenon referred to as gender segregation (Fenson et al., 1994).
By early elementary school, children gravitate towards activities, such as sports, that are historically associated with their gender. Over time, through continued exposure and interaction with members of the same gender, children align their behavior with gender‐role norms through the process of general socialization of gender norms, through which children acquire the standards, values, and knowledge of their society as it pertains to gender.
Expression of Gender Identity
Once gender identity is established, children tend to engage in activities associated with their identified gender through a process called identification. Identification is a psychological process in which children try to look, act, feel, and be like significant people in their social environment, such as peers and adults. Adults often provide certain expectations for children that serve as a framework for how children should or should not behave. When individuals identify as a gender other than the gender aligned with their assigned biological sex, they identify as transgender. Research suggests that gender identity in transgender children is just as strong as it is in cisgender children (Gülgöz et al., 2019). Additionally, societal expectations have little to no impact on a transgender child’s sense of gender identity. While the child may risk social rejection, they are likely still to seek environmental cues that support their gender identity.
Sex‐Role Identity
Cultural stereotypes of males and females involve broad expectations of behavior that we call gender or sex‐roles. In Western cultures, the feminine sex‐role stereotype includes traits such as gentleness, helpfulness, dependence, warmth, emotionality, and submissiveness, while the masculine sex‐role stereotype includes independence, self‐confidence, competitiveness, and aggressiveness. There are four major views on the process of sex‐role identification in children. While not always substantiated by evidence, the first is the psychodynamic view, conceptualized by Freud. This view uses Freud’s psychosexual stages of development and assumes young children are caught in hidden conflicts between their fears and desires. According to this view, early stages of psychosexual development, such as the phallic stage, mark the period during which children look to their parents for ways in which they ought to behave. Through the process of identification, children look for cues on how to be similar to their same sex parent.
The second major view of sex‐role identity is called the social learning view, which emphasizes two processes—modeling and differential reinforcement. Modeling is the process by which children observe and imitate individuals of their own gender. Movies, television shows, books, and magazines tend to portray male and female characters differently; this can play a significant role in how boys and girls decide how they should behave. Differential reinforcement occurs when girls and boys are differentially rewarded for engaging in gender‐appropriate behavior (boys may be praised for engaging in aggressive behavior while girls may be punished).
The third and fourth major views are the cognitive‐developmental view and the gender schema view, respectively, which focus on the idea that a child’s own conceptions are central to the formation of sex‐role identity. Three stages proposed by Kohlberg are highlighted in the cognitive‐developmental view. The first stage is basic sex‐role identity where a child labels oneself as a boy or a girl. The second stage is sex‐role stability in which the child starts understanding the stability of the sex‐role over time. The third